I was raised and educated in Italy then moved to the US for my Ph.D., and I now work and teach in beautiful Maine; by now, going back and forth between languages and cultures is almost a way of life. I try to bring the insights that come from this experience into my service to the profession, in a number of initiatives where translation (between languages and between cultures) is a paramount importance. As I see it, crossing languages is not an issue to be solved, or an unfortunate circumstance to be dealt with, but a resource to benefit from, the premise of wildly engaging and never-ending game. In this spirit, I serve as co-editor of the Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library book series published by the University of Toronto Press. I am the Managing Editor of Agincourt Press, a publishing house based in New York. I am the co-founder of Emilio Villa International Research Center, a group of scholars focused on the writings of poet Emilio Villa and on experimental literary, more in general. I am a redattore of the of the online academic journal Rossocorpolingua.
The Press comprises three different series: Opuntia, Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library, and Sea Horse, each series being distinct:
The Opuntia series publishes books on literary criticism, philosophy of language, poetics, and their intersection with political science. They are edited and published by Luigi Ballerini and Gianluca Rizzo.
The Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library is an organic collection of texts translated into English and written by authors who have made significant literary, philosophical, juridical, and historical contributions to the world of international culture. The Lorenzo Da Ponte Books are edited and published by Luigi Ballerini and Gianluca Rizzo (General Editors).
The Sea Horse Imprint, a series edited by Aprés-Coup Psychoanalytic Association, honors the legacy left by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan in the world of psychoanalysis, philosophy, art, anthropology, linguistics, and literature. Sea Horse Booksare edited and published by Paola Mieli (Publisher & Director), Mark Stafford (Editor), Martin Winn (editorial Support).
The Emilio Villa International Center serves as a means to coordinate a group of scholars from different disciplines and different institutions in both Italy and abroad. It is devoted, first and foremost, to the study of Emilio Villa’s works: Not only those that are literary in a traditional sense, but those that reflect his numerous transgressions into other fields, from arts to ancient languages, from performing arts to music, from mathematics to philosophy, from anthropology to archeology.
Rossocorpolingua is a quarterly online, peer-reviewed, literary journal published by the Associazione Letteraria Elio Pagliarani. It focuses on contemporary literature, especially Italian poetry, but it also includes translation from and into Italian, as well as essays focusing on specific libraries and archives, biographies, and bibliographies.